“Are you about TREE, or are you about FOOTBALL?”

Back in 2012, my wife Eileen and I were enjoying our first not-visiting-relatives vacation since…our honeymoon four years previous, staying at her mother’s former vacation condo in Hilton Head (which is about the only way we could afford to “do” Hilton Head). After our beach-and-pool day, we decided to go to the iconic Salty Dog Café for dinner. Getting a table meant an hour-and-a-half wait, so we took a seat at one of the outdoor bars to eat.

Although she is a Montevallo graduate and a total nonsports fan (yes, I don’t know how we got together, either), I finally got my wife to understand what it means to be a part of the Auburn family after taking her to the National Championship celebration and a Homecoming game. I think she got the picture after seeing 80,000 people all wearing the same shirt. In any case, Eileen and I were both wearing Auburn T-shirts and coordinating shorts, not quite matchy-matchy (although I really don’t mind going completely matchy-matchy, which is one of my endearing qualities according to her) but close enough.

A fellow sitting by himself on another side of the bar to our right was talking to everyone in general and no one in particular with a misplaced sense of bravado and self-assuredness that men sitting by themselves at a bar often have. He wore a cap with the legend “NO1 GR8TR” on the front and the Kentucky “K” on the side. It didn’t take him long to notice our Auburn attire. “Awww, you’re from Auburn,” he said, thereby becoming Mr. MOTO (Master Of The Obvious) in my mind. “That’s okay, I like Auburn, they’re SEC, that’s good,” he continued. “but look out for these folks,” he said, pointing to a couple on the other side of the bar from us, “they are Alabama!” Eileen and I exchanged a pleasant wave with the Bama contingent (who incidentally were not wearing colors and didn’t even look like they were going to make a deal about AU, Bama, or anything else for that matter).

Someone asked him what the notation on his cap meant. “It means ‘No One Greater’—that sure describes me!” Mr. MOTO guffawed and explained it also represented Kentucky’s recent NCAA Basketball Championship. I really couldn’t ignore this fellow, and the misplaced bravado and self-assuredness was starting to rub me the wrong way. I butted in, “If the ball isn’t pointy or has laces, I don’t really care about it,” which refers to my love of football, rugby, and baseball, and my total present indifference to basketball. “That’s what happens when you can’t win championships,” he rejoindered, thereby scoring a cheap and inelegant, yet nonetheless valid, zinger on me.

True to what I dubbed him in my mind, Mr. MOTO continued on: “Hey, you got those trees down there at, what-do-they-call-it?” thus engaging me in more conversation than I wanted. “Toomer’s Corner, right in front of the Auburn campus,” I filled in. “Yeah, they poisoned them trees, what’s going on with that?” he asked. The Bama people then jumped right on into the conversation, chirping brightly, “But the trees are alright now.”

“No, they are not,” I replied back, “They are biologically alive, and may stay that way for a while, but our horticulture department at Auburn says they may be what they call ‘aesthetically dead’ soon.” Not wanting to be left out of the conversation that he started, Mr. MOTO interjected, pointing at me and saying “Hey listen—Are you about TREE, or are you about FOOTBALL?”

My heart skipped a beat for a second when I heard that, and I had to catch my breath. I’d like to think the whole outdoor bar went silent, like in an old western movie, waiting for my reply (of course, it didn’t).

“I’m about AUBURN,” I told this fellow, and the Bama folks, and anyone else who wanted to hear my voice at normal speaking level. “Those trees are a part of our campus, and that campus is a part of our tradition, and all those things, plus every Auburn man and woman who ever passed under those trees, make up Auburn. Auburn is more than trees, or football, or any other thing. I’m about AUBURN.”

Fortunately, our food finally came, and I was relieved to be free from the conversation into which I was reluctantly drawn. A woman came up to me and said, “I think it is just TERRIBLE what they did to those trees.” And it is terrible, but it is more terrible to think why someone would do that to our trees. Folks, the man who “allegedly”admittedly poisoned our trees did that not because he is a jerk, not because he hates trees, and not because he has “too much Bama” in him (a sentiment which was repudiated by the family of Tommy Lewis, the originator of the quote). That man “allegedly” did this because he wanted to hurt all of us that hold Auburn dear. As such, he “allegedly” did this because he, along with all those Bama fans that now idolize him, stands, at heart, against all that Auburn really is. The thing is, he really isn’t smart enough to understand that about himself, but it is still true nonetheless.

(The fellow who lit our new tree on fire probably didn’t have anything at all in his mindless head when he did what he did, but even that shows disregard of anything beyond his own pathetic little life and desire to “watch the world burn.”)

So, folks, as we live our lives and scream “WAR EAGLE” and mourn our trees and enjoy our football, let’s remember one thing—at heart, we are all about AUBURN, and no less than all of AUBURN.

I am a second-generation Auburn man. I got to see Bo, Barkley, and Big Hurt all play while I earned two degrees in accounting from AU between 1983 and 1988. I now work as an accountant for the City of Sandy Springs in Georgia, while living in the town of Winder (about 20 minutes from Athens, the home of the Bulldogs). View Profile →

You hit the nail right on the head. I don’t think you can pin it on his possibly being drunk–this fellow was just to dumb and self-absorbed (like a lot of folks these days) and just didn’t give a darn about anyone else. MVH